The appeal process begins this month against a ruling that former City firm Sinclair Roche & Temperley (SRT) discriminated against two female partners.

Last year, an employment tribunal ruled that Sin Heard, now an assistant at More Fisher Brown, and Sin Fellows, a consultant at Richards Butler, had suffered discrimination on the grounds of gender.

Damages have yet to be assessed.

SRT and the four individuals found to have aided the discrimination - Jeff Morgan, Stuart Beadnell, Michael Stockwood and Struan Robertson - are seeking to appeal, with a preliminary hearing due this month.

The full judgment found the pair were treated less favourably than two male comparators.

'Although they were initially highly successful performers in terms of billings, their performance dropped off after a while because they were not given the same level of referrals of work as their named comparators,' the tribunal in London decided.

'Accordingly, they were not able to achieve such high billing levels and were impeded from progressing to the higher partnership level.

Consequently, their performance suffered and they also received less favourable treatment when the firm started to experience financial difficulties in 2002.

This led to their being earmarked for "reclassification" in any merged firm.'

The tribunal also found indirect discrimination against Ms Fellows - but not Ms Heard - because the requirement to work full-time to achieve equity partnership at SRT affected mainly women with childcare responsibilities.

Claims of victimisation were dismissed.

SRT had identified the two women for being downgraded to associates in the 2002 merger with fellow City firm Stephenson Harwood (SH).

The tribunal heard that when SH was notified of their claims, it offered the pair fixed-share partnerships so as not to continue any discriminatory practice.

The judgment also revealed a catalogue of embarrassing details for SRT, including evidence of sexual harassment by another male partner that was not properly dealt with, a culture where equal opportunity issues were given little weight and complaints ignored, and unclear controls over conflicts of interest.

It also emerged that a group of SRT partners was negotiating to jump ship to Holman Fenwick & Willan - behind their managing partner's back - before the merger with SH.

The tribunal said the Royal Bank of Scotland crystallised SRT's overdraft in September 2001 because of the possibility of this happening.

Ms Heard and Ms Fellows said they preferred not to comment while aspects of the case remain outstanding.

A statement from SH said: 'This is a matter for the former Sinclair Roche & Temperley partnership only and not a matter for Stephenson Harwood.'

Jeremy Fleming